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When Latonia Best's teenaged kids were little, doctors always prescribed antibiotics for their ear infections. But when her youngest son, 5-year-old Justin, was diagnosed with one recently, she heard something new: The pediatrician asked if she wanted to try waiting a few days to see if he would...
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Smoking and alcohol use have generally been considered the primary causative agents in head and neck cancer, but the growing incidence of the tumors over the last two decades is attributed to another source -- human papillomavirus, or HPV, especially HPV-16, which is a key player in cervical can...
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Most of us drank milk every day when we were young without a problem. Then, sometime in our teens or early 20s, we start to feel bloated or have discomfort after consuming a lot of milk, typically two or more glasses at a time.

Scientists have discovered that most people develop some degree o...
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A new retrovirus, xenotropic murine leukaemia virus-related virus (XMRV), first identified in tumor tissue of individuals with prostate cancer, was subsequently found in 68 of 101 US patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). XMRV was not detected in blood samples of 186 confirmed CFS patient...
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The iguanas of the Galapagos Islands have evolved many unique characteristics due to their isolation from mainland iguanas. Because they can't swim long distances, biologists believe that the first Galapagos iguanas arrived on natural rafts made from vegetation.

Lab tests for disease diagnosis can be very expensive and cumbersome for many regions of the world. George Whitesides, American chemist and professor of chemistry at Harvard University, has an answer that can be manufactured with just paper and carpet tape at virtually zero cost. Filmed at TEDxB...
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A new Twitter-FaceBook-FriendFeed-like site called Sciencefeed allows users to post short messages around on scientific-related content, including news headlines, new findings, metings, events and ideas. Just lke Twit...
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Microbial enzymes are commonly used to reduce the levels of contamination created by industrial processes. In an article published in The Journal of Biological Chemistry, the researchers Óscar Gallardo, F. Javier Pastor and Pilar Diaz from the Microbial Enzymes Group of the Faculty of Biology pr...
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Federal officials say 225 people in 44 states and the District are thought to have been sickened by salmonella in imported black pepper used in the preparation of salami and other types of Italian sausage made by a Rhode Island company.

A Yale School of Medicine study reveals that the high prevalence of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) among injection drug users may be partly due to the resilience of the virus in certain types of syringes. The study, which could open new avenues in preventing the spread of HCV, will be the focus of ...
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A common treatment for herpes can delay the need for HIV drugs in people with both infections, say US researchers. A study of 3,300 patients in Africa found aciclovir reduced the risk of HIV progression by 16%, The Lancet reports.

Although a "modest" effect, the researchers said the cheap tr...
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A negative rapid flu test did not necessarily mean that the patient did not have the 2009 H1N1 influenza, said experts at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital in a report that appears online today in the journal Pediatrics.

Each week CDC analyzes information about influenza disease activity in the United States and publishes findings of key flu indicators in a report called FluView. During the week of January 31 – February 6, 2010, most key flu indicators remained about the same as during the previous week. Below i...
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A strange new natural contender in aiding in the fight against biological weapons has stepped forward, with researchers learning that the fruit of mushrooms can be used in cleaning up following a biological attack.

Mushroom researcher Paul Stemets has discovered that mycelium from mushrooms m...
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Hospital workers often have to wash their hands dozens of times a day — and may need a minute or more to do the process right, by scrubbing with soap and water. But new devices could reduce the task to just four seconds, cleaning even hard-to-reach areas under fingernails.

Scientists have pinpointed specific mutations that allow a common plant virus to infect new species, according to research published in the March issue of the Journal of General Virology. Understanding the genetics of the key interactions between viruses and hosts could provide insight to how so...
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When it comes to periodontal disease, veterinarians are in a position to play a stronger role in preventing the most common disorder affecting cats and dogs worldwide, according to Banfield’s Applied Research and Knowledge (BARK) team. New findings show that 68 percent of cats and 78 percent of ...
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Of all science’s model organisms, none is as weird as Dictyostelium discoideum, a single-celled amoeba better known as slime mold. When they run out of food, millions coalesce into a single, slug-like creature that wanders in search of nutrients, then forms a mushroom-like stalk, scatters as spo...
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